Mood Indigo (27 page)

Jane wandered off on her own. She would rather have returned to the sensual sanctuary of the Paradise house— especially when she sp
otted the Widow Grundy. What information would the old woman ask of her this time?

“There you are, dear,” cried the wall-eyed Lucy Knowles, laying a plump, beringed hand on Jane’s gloved arm. Jane never knew which eye to watch. “Do come with me. I’ve someone I want you to meet, a gentleman who seems to know you. I bel
ieve he said you two were neighbors in the same shire in England.”

Gratefully Jane escaped the proximity of the Widow Grundy. “Here he is,” said Lucy, indicating a man whose crimson-clad back was to them. Even with the powdered wig concealing his hair, Jane sensed something familiar about the man—perhaps i
n his stance. “Dear, let me present Richard Carter, our new dancing master. Mr. Carter, Mrs. Ethan Gordon.”

The man turned, and Jane froze. She looked into the pale blue eyes that had
obsessed her all her life. “Terence,” she breathed.

He bowed low, his lips lingering on her suddenly cold fingertips. Before she could withdraw her hand, he turned it over and planted a light kiss on her palm.

Lucy Knowles caught the romantic gesture, and sighed. If only she herself were so young, so slender. “Well, I’ll leave you two to renew your friendship.”

Jane thought her knees would buckle, but Terence’s hand was at her elbow, lending support as he led her to the French doors, open to the night’s coolness. Out on the terrace, she clutched the cool stone balustrade for support. Lanterns lit a symmetrical pleasure garden and a pleached arbor of hornbeam that afforded a secluded place for young lovers to wander. Yet she was as immobile as the tree-box topiary.

Terence’s fingers caught her arms and forced her to face him. “You did not wait for me.”

“You didn’t come for me,” she cried. Why? Why now, when it was too late?

His hand cupped her chin. His face drew near to hers. “Are you still loyal to England?”

“Yes . . . yes, of course,” she stuttered, distracted, confused.

“And to me?”

“Oh, Terence, what has happened to us?”

“Nothing. And nothing can keep you from me, Jane.” “But I’m married to another!” she cried piteously.

“And if you remember the old Hindu’s words, I wait for you at the end of the long road.”

“But how—”

His lips silenced hers. For a moment she forgot all else and clung to him with the desperate need for his love— the seed that he had planted in her childhood. When he at last released her, she was breathless. Her head spun as if she had consumed too much champagne. He pulled her head into the hollow bene
ath his jaw and stroked the delicate arch of her neck. She could smell the light scent of lilac water about him. She had forgotten how devilishly handsome he was.

“I have been staying at the Knowles’, instructing the children from nearby families in the art of dancing,” he said at her ear. “I fear I won’t be seeing you again before I leave.”

She lifted her head. “Before you leave?”

“I have a task to do, my Jane, before I can make you mine. But when it is carried out, no one shall keep us from one another.”

“I shall.”

Terence turned slowly, still holding Jane. Ethan stood in the doorway, the bright li
ght of the candelabra silhouetting his enormous build. His smoky eyes bore into hers as he held out his hand. “Come, Jane.”

She stood between the two men, feeling the tearing of her soul into two parts. The clasp of Terence’s hand at her elbow thrilled her; yet some compunction of integrity prompted her to put her hand in Ethan’s.

Terence bowed low, his sun-darkened face mocking. “Keep Jane well, for I shall make my claim of her at the proper moment.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The hired phaeton’s team clipclopped along the hard-packed dirt avenue that marked the Palace Green and turned off onto the Duke of Gloucester. The tension within the coach was claustrophobic. Jane let the glass down to the hot wind. A harbinger of a Southern summer night’s thunderstorm, the wind tossed the live oak leaves wildly, while shreds of clouds scuttled across dawn’s waning moon.

Inside the carriage the silence grew deafening. How much of the reunion between her and Terence had Ethan witnessed? In the face of Ethan’s controlled calm, Jane tried to contain her growing anxiety.

When they arrived at the Paradise house, she hurried ahead of him to the door, wanting only to escape his silent anger. She glanced over her shoulder. He was making no effort to lengthen his stride, yet she sensed she was his quarry. Lifting her skirts, she scurried up the stairs. He overtook her just before she gained the landing and spun her around. The melting candle in the wall sconce cast a pale glow on her alabaster skin where his fingers dug into her bare shoulders.

“What do you want?” she asked with a haughty tone that did not hide her skittishness.

“I want my wife.”

She saw the brutal set of his face. “No. Not in anger.”

“Yes. Anytime. I ask only that which you would so willingly bestow on other men.”

She pulled from his grasp, but his hand streaked out to grab her hair, painfully h
alting her escape. Her pins tumbled loose, and the powder on her curls dusted the air as her hair tumbled about her shoulders. He pressed his lips into hers, and she sensed he did not care if he hurt her. Fear coiled inside her. She tried to push him away, but his hands pinioned her arms to her sides with ease while his tongue sabered every comer of her mouth. Tasting the brandy on his lips, her own tongue parried the thrust of his.

Her resistance, she k
new, angered him. Better to submit. But some primitive force goaded her into provoking him further, even as his mouth continued to subjugate hers. When his hand slid inside the lace ruffle of her décolletage to cup the swell of one breast, she bit him.

“Damn you!” he said lowly. Gone was the mild Quaker. He thrust her from him, and she saw in the candlelight the blood that crimsoned his lower lip.

Her hand flew to her mouth, and she fled the rest of the way up the stairs and along the corridor to her room. Behind her she could hear him loping easily. Gaining her room, she slammed the door with a force that sputtered candles in their wall sconces. She leaned against one of the bedposts, her breasts heaving in breathless fright.

He kicked the door open. She tried to conceal her fear with the arrogant tilt of chin. “Take me then, Ethan, and get it over with.”

She saw the deep self-disgust that tightened his lips.

“ ’Tis all right, Jane, I shall not hurt thee.” He wiped the back of his hand across his brow and muttered almost to himself, “I must be out of my mind.”

“No . . . no, Ethan. I think I am.” She lowered her face so she did not have to see the tortured look in his eyes. “Oh, Ethan, I feel like—like I belong in Williamsburg’s Public Mental Hospital. I don’t know what I want. I don’t understand myself.”

“Jane, I’m staying at Raleigh Tavern tonight. Then I’m going back to Mood Hil
l.” He put his hand on the doorknob, adding, “Paradise house is at thy disposal until thee can sail for England.”

He was leaving her! Only her lacerated pride saved her from crying out foolishly. “And if I choose not to return to England?” she asked in a cool tone.

He shrugged. “ ’Tis thy choice.” Then the door closed behind him.

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

P
olly curtseyed. “Mistress? Yew have a visitor.”

Jane sighed. She was to get no work done that morning. All morning Bruton Parish’s
church bells had rung out, making concentration difficult, until at last she had gone out to see what all the hue and cry was about.

Every soul in town seemed to have turned out to read the proclamation on the courthouse door. She shouldered her way through the crowd’s outskirts and from her great height was able to read a portion of the proclamation.

. . . that these United Colonies are free and independent states and the connection between them and the State of Great Britain be dissolved.

The young man next to her said in an uneasy voice, “There’s no going ba
ck. The ties are severed irrevocably.”

At first Jane felt numb. The idea would take some getting used to. But then, if she stayed in the colonies, it might be exciting to be part of a new adventure, part of history in the making. The idea had distracted her from her work the rest of the morning. And now she had a visitor, who probably wanted to gloat about the event.

“Who is it Polly?”

“The Widow Grundy is ’ere to see ye, missus.”

Jane bit her lip in vexation. The widow would want to know what she learned about the mysterious Leper at Wythe’s party last night.

“Thank you, Polly,” she said with a small smile. She knew the young woman, drawn away from her Peter, was as miserable as she. Jane knew now she loved Ethan. Wildly. He was a man among men. But how to deny that loyalty she felt to Terence?

Putting aside her market list, she rose and went into the parlor. Seated on the couch, the widow was tapping her pipe impatiently against the palm of her hand. “Good afternoon, Mrs. Grundy.” Jane sat opposite her in the armless Queen Anne chair and arranged her farthingale.

“Are we alone, child?”

Nonplussed, Jane looked around her. “Well . . . yes.”

“Good. Your Terence is here, in Williamsburg, isn’t he?”

Jane nodded. “How did you know?”

“I’m not the only
one who knows. The Leper’s Colony knows also.”

Jane’s hand went to her throat, and the old woman said, “The Colony knows that the British Army’s top spy is in Virginia. They don’t know it’s Terence MacKenzie. But with
the Leper’s wide network of informants, he’ll know soon. If you care about England, girl—if you care about your Terence, then you must help us expose the Leper.”

Jane rose to pace the room. “I have watched and listened but seen nothing out of the ordinary—nothing to indicate that the
Leper operates out of Williamsburg.”

The widow took the pipe from her seamed lips and pulled on the pipe’s tubular end. Like the quill pen, the pipe’s end separated. From its hollow she extracted a narrow strip of rolled p
aper and passed it to Jane, saying, “Governor Henry carelessly left this in his wastebasket, and his underservant, one of us, was able to retrieve it.”

Jane read the strip.
Have information for the Leper about Ahmad. Tonight at 11:00 at the middle chamber.

“A ball celebrating
the colonies’ Declaration of Independence, doomed as it is, will be given tonight, and the Leper will be there. So must you—at eleven in the middle chamber upstairs, child.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Food was carried to the palace’s formal dining room in great covered containers from the service area west of the building. The independence celebration was an elaborate affair, with the Binn Cellar beneath the Georgian executive mansion providing hundreds of gallons of imported wines. Governor Henry was at his wittiest, his sharp ripostes keeping the guests amused.

After the meal, a violin, harpsicord, and cello, played by students from William and Mary, fu
rnished the entertainment for the evening.

A glorious evening for everyone but Jane. Now she could understand why people were said to die from heartbreak. She could actually feel the throbbing pain in her chest. Lest anyone guess her distress, she danced merrily with partner after
partner, waiting for that fateful hour of eleven. To those who asked about Ethan’s absence she lightly explained that mercantile business called him out of town.

How, anyway, did she ever expect to compete with a woman such as Susa
n? Having never made love to Susan or grown uncontrollably angry with her or laughed with her until tears came, Ethan could never know that she might not be suited for him—though he might have realized it had he ever gotten close enough to hold her in his arms.

Jan
e wanted only to go to Terence, to seek solace in those arms that always held comfort. She wanted to leave this little rural college town and all its memories; to leave the colonies and return to the civilization that was England. However, Terence was in danger, and she would see the party through. Yet just thinking of the contempt she glimpsed in Ethan’s eyes the night before gave her an unbearable headache. She knew she was not the woman he deserved. But the thought of another woman lying beneath him shafted the backs of her eyes with streaks of searing red.

By ten, she could no longer hide behind the facade of the witty and brilliant lady. Claiming fatigue, she withdrew from the rigors of the dance. She sought out the dowagers along the wall a
nd, listlessly fanning herself, watched the dancing couples move in the stately grace of the gavotte. She could find no joy in the evening. Only an anxious waiting. Above the din of the laughter and music, she was sure she heard the slow, monotonous tick of the clock above the great marble mantel. Her gaze followed the slow progress of the clock’s hands. Fifteen before eleven.